People from all over the country will be able to register sustainable planting initiatives for economic purposes in the areas of MG and ES
On March 22, World Water Day, the Renova Foundation, in partnership with WWF-Brazil, Instituto Terra and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), launches the RFP for the Renovating Ideas Competition: Planting Trees and Harvesting Food. In order to identify solutions for Agroforestry Systems (SAF), a practice that combines forest species with agricultural crops or livestock, the competition will award the best projects with their implementation in the Doce River Basin. Five initiatives will be awarded, three carried out in the Doce River Basin and two others outside the basin, anywhere in the country.
The competition will promote the creation of a network for sharing knowledge, considered essential for the forest restoration work. All participants will also receive informative material to be disseminated among the Family Farming Schools and the Federal Educational Institutes of the states of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo. In addition, each selected project will receive a cash prize.
About 40 thousand hectares of area will be reforested by the Renova Foundation. Of this total, approximately 10 thousand can be used for planting for economic purposes. By the end of this year, the productive activities that will be implemented in the Doce River basin will be defined.
Economic activity
According to Renova’s Sustainable Land Use specialist Felipe Drummond, the SAF initiative will be a way of generating income for producers in the basin. “Producers will have the opportunity to preserve their areas, improving the quality of vegetation, water and soil, but will also have activities that generate income,” he says.
Leda Fontelles Tavares, water and agriculture specialist at WWF Brazil, highlights the importance of engaging in this environmental restoration challenge. “The competition goes beyond creating new reforestation commitments. It is a way of involving people, arousing interest in rural areas and spreading knowledge to participants and other people involved in this area, such as students and children of producers,” she says.